3d Sunday of Lent
March 3, 2013
Ex 3: 1-8, 13-15
Provincial House, New
Rochelle, N.Y.
“Moses came to Horeb, the mountain of God” (Ex
3: 1).
Moses has been living with Jethro for many
years; unfortunately, Exodus describes the passage of years only as “a long
time” (2:23). Moses has married one of
Jethro’s daughters, had a son, lived in exile as “a stranger in a foreign land”
(2:22), and presumably been helping tend Jethro’s flocks for that whole “long
time.”
Is the occasion in today’s story from Exodus 3
the 1st time Moses and the flock—and whoever else was with them—have come to
Horeb, which is another name for Sinai?
Probably not, assuming that nomads like Jethro’s clan followed a regular
pattern of travel from pasture to pasture, from watering place to watering
place, year after year.
But this time Horeb is different. From the burning bush God tells Moses to
remove his sandals, “for the place where you stand is holy ground” (3:5). Did the place suddenly become holy, or is Moses
is being made to see God’s presence where he’d never been aware of it before? Granted, it had never been so obvious before.
Moses and the burning bush. Mosaic in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington |
So 2 things are hidden here: the presence of God in an ordinary place, an
ordinary scene, ordinary life; and the power of God within someone whom God
calls.
Grace Loeffler. Photo from her blog. |
In the last couple of weeks at least 2 of the SLMs
have noted in blogs that they’ve rather suddenly, in this season of Lent,
become aware of all the opportunities for penance around them in their daily
lives. For instance, from South Sudan
Grace Loeffler writes: “What I’ve discovered is this: Mission is in itself is a
penance. Paralleling the satisfaction and joy of daily life is the daily
commitment to sacrifice. This joy masked the small struggles of daily life for
many months; and without coincidence, the Lord chose this holy season to open
my eyes to this daily sacrifice, offering me the opportunity for growth and a
greater dependence upon His grace. It’s truly a gift, but it hasn’t been easy!”
Of course we SDBs have always been aware that
the Lord calls us to “accept the daily demands and renunciations of the
apostolic life” and to be “ready to suffer cold and heat, hunger and thirst,
weariness and disdain whenever God’s glory and the salvation of souls require
it” (C18).
The Lord’s presence, the Lord’s graces, the
Lord’s love, opportunities and challenges from the Lord are always around
us. We shouldn’t need bushes to burst
into flame to see them, or to be knocked to our feet like St. Paul, or to have
strange dreams like Don Bosco. Jesus
urges us to recognize “the signs,” not just in tragedies (as in today’s gospel,
Luke 13:1-9) or in weather patterns (12:54-56), but in the entire world around
us. How is God revealing himself to us,
and to what is he calling us, in ways that maybe we haven’t been noticing but
should be noticing: in the natural world,
the environment; in great political events like the resurgence of Islam,
democratic revolutions, and political paralysis; in vast cultural changes in
the Western world and in globalization; in the decline in religiosity and even
the re-paganization of the West, in Latin America’s turning from Catholicism to
evangelical religion; in the huge transformations in communications technology? How does God reveal himself to us, and to
what is he calling us, in the people around us every day: in their needs, their fears, their longings,
their hopes, their triumphs, their failures?
How is he revealing himself in my own life, in what happens to me, in
the fears, the longings, the joys of my heart (like the burning hearts of the 2
disciples on the road to Emmaus!), and in the Word that I read and hear every
day?
When we do hear God’s voice—in dramatic events
or deep within our hearts—we may feel overwhelmed and incapable, as Moses
did. Our Holy Father emeritus surely
felt that way when he was elected Peter’s successor 8 years ago—and he’d been
begging Blessed John Paul for years to allow him to retire to a quiet,
scholarly life much more suited to his personality. Isn’t that how Johnny Bosco felt in that 1st
dream: “Confused and frightened, I
replied that I was a poor, ignorant child.
I was unable to talk to those youngsters about religion. ‘Who are you, ordering me to do the
impossible?’” (MO 1989, p. 18)?
God knew what Moses was capable of; he’d already
seen Moses in action: defending his
fellow Israelite against injustice (Ex 2:11-12), defending Jethro’s daughters
against the local bullies (2:15-17). God
gave Moses human assistance: his brother
Aaron as spokesman and aide, and later, young Joshua and a whole cohort of
judge-assistants. Most of all, God
himself stayed with Moses. “Tell the
Israelites, the Lord has sent me to you” (3:15), and here’s the evidence: he’s told me his name (3:14), which means I
can call upon him any time I need to (one commentator compares this revelation
of the divine Name to giving someone your private phone number). God forms a most intimate relationship with
Moses, so that, as Exodus 33 tells us, they speak to each other “face to face,
as one man speaks to another” (v. 11), something entirely unheard of in the OT.
God knows what we’re capable of, as well, and
assures us that he is with us. “Don’t be
afraid,” Jesus tells his disciples repeatedly.
“If God is for us, who can be against us?” St. Paul asks (Rom
8:31). As Moses’ life and ministry, and
Don Bosco’s too, show us, we don’t know the resources within us when we allow
God to direct us, to use us as his instruments to rescue his people from their
slavery and guide them toward salvation (cf. Ex 3:8).
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